


A Great Many Things

by orphan_account



Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: Anal Fingering, Blood Elves, Friends to Lovers, Friendship/Love, Happy Ending, M/M, Male Friendship, Oral Sex, Reconciliation, Strained Friendships, Wistful, m/m - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-25
Updated: 2016-08-25
Packaged: 2018-08-10 22:00:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7862761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lor'themar Theron and Halduron Brightwing possess a friendship tested by time, their own weaknesses, and navigating a complex and dangerous world. They have not always been on the same page lately, but both men discover that their shared respect, mutual admiration and love for their people might lead to new ways their friendship can grow and with it, a new facet of their relationship. Occurs pre-Legion. Hopefully I don't bash lore *too* badly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Great Many Things

Lor’themar Theron sat alone in his private offices. It was glorious to be distanced from meeting halls and harried Spire assistants corralling unscheduled visitors insisting to be seen on matters of ‘urgent business.’

 _It is all urgent business._ Life _is urgent business,_ he thought to himself. _And it never ends until you're dead at which point, it becomes someone else's urgent business._

The Regent Lord of Silvermoon sighed, and then reached for the sheaf of parchment nearest him. Three sharp knocks at the door--his newest assistant’s signal for _yes, more urgent business_ \--ended his half a breath’s space of relative peace.

“Whatever is it now, Sinras?” Lor’themar called out, not bothering to hide his impatience. He was, after all, supposed to be left to his own devices for the remainder of day--no appointments, no interruptions. Only his own taciturn company, a stack of fresh blotting papers and what looked like a century’s worth of correspondence he could not in good form foist off on a scribe.

“My lord, you have a visitor. A rather insistent, unscheduled visitor,” Sinras replied, the office door only half open to block whoever was waiting beyond.

“I think I warrant more than unscheduled visitor, do I not?” A familiar voice sounded from the hallway.

Sinras remained unmoved. “My sincere apologies, Ranger General Brightwing, but Lord Theron said he was not to be disturbed.” Despite her mild demeanor, Sinras guarded Lor’themar’s schedule with more devoted ferocity than any of his recent assistants had ever managed.

 _This younger generation has promise_ , Lor’themar thought with grim satisfaction.

Lor'themar sat taller in his chair and smoothed his expression.

“Please see him in, Sinras, but I thank you for the warning and due diligence.” Lor’themar braced himself for the waves of annoyance, even fury that would inevitably follow this intrusion--conversations with Brightwing seemed to have that effect more often than not as of late.

The Ranger General strode into the room, unsmiling but so maddeningly at ease that Lor’themar could not help but be further perturbed.

_The Ranger General...when did he become merely the title, a surname and not--_

“Halduron,” Lor’themar said and lay down his pen.

“Lor’themar,” Halduron replied. He waited in front of Lor’themar’s desk, tall and golden in his uniquely easeful way, wearing a blue tunic and plain riding leathers. He looked fresh and windblown, several strands of his spun-gold hair loose and slashing over his face.

Lor’themar could swear the other elf had brought the scent of forest air into his offices, of the chilly rain that had fallen all afternoon.

Out of habit, Lor’themar scraped a hand over the stubble forming around his carefully-trimmed beard. He felt unsettled, anticipating Brightwing’s forthcoming critique of recent executive decisions or petitions for repositioning of troops or whatever else he had prepared--the only things that brought him to the Spire these days.

“Sinras, please bring us some refreshments then close my offices for the day. Halduron, do have a seat.”

“I would prefer to stand, if I may,” Halduron said with a small quirk of his lips. “The rain was the sideways variety, and I have no wish to ruin upholstery.”

The two men waited in silence, Lor’themar at his desk and Halduron still and tall like a hero’s statue in his spot on the thick scarlet carpet. After several interminable moments, Sinras returned with a light repast of spiced wine, fruit and cheese. She handed both men informal tumblers, fuller than usually would be poured, then was gone in moments with the door closed behind her.

“Excellent new assistant. She managed to disdain me while being perfectly polite,” Halduron said.

“Excellent indeed. She also anticipated that I would need more than a sip of wine to weather the rest of this day.” Lor’themar took a drink, unsurprised when the flavor of a particularly potent reserve met his tongue.

“I noticed that as well,” Halduron said, raising his glass.

“What brings you here on short notice today, Halduron? Is something amiss?” Lor’themar regretted his words the moment he said them, his voice so weary and wary that Halduron would know beyond doubt that he was ill at ease.

“No more than usual. You were quite busy just before I arrived, I am assuming?” Halduron asked.

Lor’themar didn’t reply.

Halduron moved with silent, quick strides to stand at Lor’themar’s desk. “I hope that I’m interrupting something _terribly_ important,” Halduron added with a strange, tight smile.

“You absolutely _are_ interrupting me, Brightwing,” Lor’themar replied. He peered up at the Ranger General with his good eye. “Though I cannot say that my current occupation was world-endingly important.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Halduron said dryly. He toyed with one cuff, a fiddly gesture for the normally staid ranger. “The satisfaction of intrusion is not quite the same.”

“I am not sorry to diminish your satisfaction,” Lor’themar countered with a shrug. “I would be delighted to have fewer occupations of the important sort.” He frowned up at his old friend, unnerved by the too-keen gaze the other man fixed upon him.

“What, Halduron?” Lor’themar asked irritably.

_Petulance does not suit you. He’ll have no doubt of your childishly hurt pride now, idiot._

“I am just going to say it, bluntly and plainly--you overdo it these days. You take on too much not just as Regent Lord but in other ways, Lor’themar,” Halduron said. “Those who have our own important duties for Quel’thalas--Rommath, Liadrin, me, any of us--you should trust us to them. You are not meant to shoulder it all. Especially when doing so is to the detriment of--”

“No more. You are out of line, Halduron,” Lor’themar cut in and stood so suddenly his chair shot back and a stack of parchment teetered. Lor’themar vaguely noticed half of his blotting sheets cascading onto the carpet, awkward square snowflakes that fell with papery whispers.

“Am I really, though?” Halduron asked.

“Yes, you are,” Lor’themar insisted. “And remarkably indelicate and,” his voice softened, “ _No_. No, you have a right to your honesty.” He looked at Halduron helplessly, arms at his side. Lor’themar wanted to back away from this conversation, to flee to his personal apartments, to be rid of this moment and whatever strange heaviness surrounded it.

 _But you cannot. It is not your place to retreat. And you_ will _not--you were never any good at backing down._

“I am relieved to hear those words,” Halduron said.

“But is that why you are here? To chide me into humbleness?” Lor’themar balled his hands into fists, nails cutting into his own palms.

“I am here because I am _worried_. Because I am tired of us being at cross-purposes,” Halduron replied. “You are my oldest friend, so I notice these things, though I think anyone who knows the least bit about you would see what I do.”

“See what?” Lor’themar said, tone knife-sharp.

“Lor...you are grim and dour. You do not come out into the world except for affairs of diplomacy and state. You do not smile, _ever_. You don’t even take lovers anymore, do you?”

Lor’themar gritted his teeth, his anger a cold, ancient and tired thing that ran marrow-deep. He couldn’t reply--he didn’t trust himself to speak.

“In my opinion, which you did not ask for but which I’m giving all the same, you could use a lover right now, a friend, a distraction, a damn hobby. Whatever happened to that woman from the Reliquary, the one who took up airship piloting? Or that magistrix--Nightsong, whatever her name was--the one you smooth-talked into eating fruit from your hand at a _funeral_ banquet?”

Lor’themar felt his jaw tighten with embarrassment. “Not that it is any of your business, but the pilot is piloting, and Magistrix _Nightheart_ is recently married to her newest husband. I am not going to ask again--”

“What about Lady Liadrin?” Halduron cut in. “I’m asking you as your friend, what happened, Lor?”

“Do _not_ ,” Lor’themar said so quietly his voice was barely a whisper. “No more, please. Do not ask these things of me.”

“I am sorry,” Halduron said almost gently. “You’ve asked similar things about _me_ in the past, but I’ve answered honestly every time. I have nothing to hide--I’ve always been loath to dock in any one port for long and you know it.” Halduron shook his head, then walked over to the refreshments tray to break away a sprig of fat, purple grapes. “I forget sometimes that you are not like me.”

“No, I am not.” Lor’themar stared across the room at Halduron, not seeing, scarcely able to think outside of the ache blooming at his temples.

 Halduron stood quietly for a moment, considering. When he turned to Lor’themar again, his expression was carefully neutral.

“Lor’themar, do you remember our Hunt? That last part of the trial that was just the two of us?” Halduron held Lor’themar’s gaze before biting a grape straight from its gnarled vine.

Lor’themar froze in place, taken aback by the question. The Hunt, a week-long Farstriders test of ranger against ranger, was not something most soldiers could forget. It taxed them in the most intense way, brought rangers face to face with both their strengths and their weaknesses.

 _Who knew_ he _would be one of my weaknesses..._

“Why wouldn’t I remember?” Lor’themar asked, baffled by the question.

“My friend,” Halduron smiled sadly, “these days I don’t assume you remember much of _anything_ about how we were.”

The words were lightly stated but Lor’themar felt like he’d been slugged in the gut with a battering ram. Sickness washed through him that had nothing to do with his burgeoning headache and exhaustion.

“That was an exquisitely cruel thing to say to me, Halduron. As if criticizing my leadership methods and prying about my love life were not sufficient to convey your disapproval of me,” Lor’themar said, his voice breaking.

Halduron had wounded him deftly, and his anger deflated in the wake of a vague, nameless ache.

“Lor…I’m sorry. I did not mean it that way. That _was_ cruel,” Halduron said then tilted his golden head thoughtfully. “But it feels true. I’m sorry about that as well.”

“It is not true, and you know it. You have only to look at me, to speak with me to see this,” Lor’themar said, staring down for a moment at the fallen blotting papers surrounding his boot toes. “You know--you _knew_ me better than anymore. Better than I knew myself sometimes…” He clamped his lips shut, the blood-gush of words stymied again by the enormity of what he felt. “I do not understand what has happened to us.”

“I know none of us are who we were in those younger days,” Halduron said. “I understand that we cannot, and _should_ not be as we were before Arthas. Before Kael’thas, and every other thing that keeps kicking our feet from beneath us. But some things don’t change--at least, not enough to make them unrecognizable. As ever, you can trust me with your life and our people’s well-being yet so often, you doubt me. You put aside my advice, work so hard to do what could be delegated--”

Halduron broke off, pausing to gather himself.

Lor’themar scoffed. “It is my sworn duty to be precisely who I am, and how I am. I owe it to Quel’thalas. I will not let our people down. They have had far too much of that from other sources--from my own past deeds, even. I cannot afford to be weak, to be affected.”

“But you _are_ affected.  You are a man--you feel as any man does. You are flesh and blood, and I think maybe you forget this.” Halduron’s smooth cheeks were flushed, his eyes bright with emotion--frustration, pleading, something Lor’themar could not read.

“I never forget that I am flesh and blood, Halduron,” Lor'themar said, lifting a hand to his scarred left cheek.

“I cannot stop hurting you today, can I?” Halduron murmured and leaned so close that Lor’themar could smell the sweet wine on his breath, the faint trace of clean, woodsy soap in Halduron’s hair. Lor’themar did not even realize that he’d closed his eye, that he was breathing in the other man’s scent like magic-infused smoke.

That the closeness was making him feel, for the first time in longer than he cared to remember, like he was on fire from within.

“Lor’themar, where did that mind of yours go just now?”

Halduron’s voice coaxed Lor’themar from out of his trance.

“You asked if I remembered our Hunt, Halduron. I was remembering it vividly just then,” Lor’themar replied, trying not to look as out of his depth as he felt. “I even dreamed about it this Fire Festival,” he said. “Two nights in a row. I promise you, I have not forgotten.” He wasn’t sure why he permitted himself this admission, but the moment the words left his tongue, he felt...lighter.

 _Relieved_.

Lor’themar had always loved his women practical, capable and strong--Liadrin was built like a siege tank in mind, soul and body and she had moved him most of all his lovers. But Lor’themar had always liked his friends strong as well--brave, clever. Survivors.

The Hunt had shown him that Halduron was as powerful, resourceful, deadly and even merciless as his people could offer and the revelation had shaken him to his boots, to his _soul’s_ boots…

The Hunt had also awakened him to the realization of what Halduron’s legion lovers already knew--his friend was a fiercely attractive man, irresistible, potent and inevitable as a thrown spear once his instincts were awakened.

_Laying in the cold pine needles and dirt that night, his subordinate, his friend ‘keeping Lor’themar warm and limber’ in the unseasonably bitter chill..._

Lor’themar shivered, aware of Halduron’s gaze on his face, expectant.

“Peculiar you should say that, Lor’themar. I dreamed of it, too--awake, sober, in the middle of inspecting my armor today.” A fey expression flickered over Halduron’s features.

Lor’themar could not look away from his friend this time, allowing himself the luxury following the curve of Halduron’s lips, gaze tracing the angular lines of that handsome, clever face--straight nose, eyes keen as a falcon’s, a strong jaw--a face so familiar that Lor’themar could complete the image in his mind if ever he lost what was left of his sight.

Halduron wasn’t a _pretty_ man, but he was remarkably handsome, so very _male_ \--fast but big enough to hold his own in any fair fight, a ranger through and through. Lor’themar himself was confident in his own masculine appeal if fully aware of his scars and flaws--he was no pampered princeling, though the ink stains on his fingers and the cut of his finely tailored overcoat hinted he was edging closer to that territory than ever he had imagined possible.

The two of them might never have considered allowing what happened that night to unfurl if a friendship tested by fire and pain did not underlie every interaction they shared.

“I would never have guessed you’d have taken...what happened...seriously,” Lor’themar said haltingly. “You have always loved your women, or at least enjoyed them at every opportunity available.”

“And the times you have allowed yourself the luxury of such enjoyment, so have you. Your taste in lovers is admirable, Lor’themar,” Halduron said with easy honesty. The other elf drew himself taller, a self-assured smile curving his lips  “But I do not see how loving our women and admiring one another must be mutually exclusive. We’ve had lifetimes to think on this.”

“I--” Lor’themar started. His heart was beating faster and his breath hitched. “It was a long time ago and we have both kept ourselves busy _surviving_. I assumed you had given it no more thought than a fling, a passing storm.”

“It _was_ a storm, wasn’t it?” Halduron held Lor’themar’s gaze, a slow smile arcing his lips. “You bent that ‘no fraternizing’ rule over and shoved it on its knees so deftly I was _almost_ intimidated.”

“Your arguments, your _enticements_ were,” Lor’themar paused delicately, “too great for any to resist. And it was just an awful, frozen night. I am not made of stone, Brightwing.”

“No, you are not. You are flesh, fire and more stubbornness than any one man has a right to,” Halduron ducked close and hovered his lips over Lor’themar’s right ear. “You are the only man I have ever wanted so much that it _hurt_.”

“Halduron…” Lor’themar leaned into the contact, craving the heat of his friend’s breath on his skin, the cool forest-smell of his hair.

_How have I not seen this?_

_How did I not understand that I’ve loved him all this time as much as I’ve loved any other in my life, maybe even more?_ _He is the best of this land, of my people. All that we were. All that Quel’thalas could have been…He is home to me._

_How did I not know?_

Halduron moved so suddenly that Lor’themar scarcely had time to register what was happening. He flattened his palm over the left side of Lor’themar’s face, just underneath the patch covering his ruined eye and knotted the fingers of his other hand in Lor’themar’s high horsetail.

Neither man moved.

Lor’themar wondered if Halduron could hear his heart thundering, could feel him trembling.

“Is this work you are doing here with your piles of paper so terribly pressing?” Halduron asked in a husky voice and trailed his calloused thumb against Lor’themar’s scarred cheek.

Lor’themar did not reply. He couldn’t--words had fled him, and in their wake left a barrage of images.

_Meager firelight melting the frozen edges of the darkness, fallen leaves, the stars coming into being one by one above him, the last stains of sunset faded from the horizon...His back is against a tree, Halduron’s dirt-stained face close to his own, expression triumphant._

_Halduron’s hand rests on his cheek like now_. _His best friend’s golden hair is unbraided and wild, bright in the firelight as he leans in and whispers at Lor’themar’s ear._

_“I win, Lor’themar Theron. Now what will be my prize?”_

_Lor’themar lifts his chin, feels his breath coming faster, and threads his fingers in Halduron’s hair before he realizes what it is he’s done._

_“Kiss me,” he says, not sure where these words are coming from. Exhaustion, hunger, adrenaline, or the raw beauty of this man--his_ friend _\--who is pinning him in place, a wicked smile on his lips._

_“Happily.”_

_Halduron’s lips crush to his almost cruelly. It is the same as kissing a woman and it is not--it is as ever making love with tongues and even teeth, with breath but they both have not shaved, and the scrape of stubble on skin, on soft lips is oddly tantalizing. Lor’themar throws back his head and his friend kisses along his jaw, trails a teasing tongue over the curve of his neck._

_A bright shock of delicious pain tears a moan from Lor’themar’s throat as Halduron’s teeth press the soft flesh at his pulse point. Soon it is more than just kissing--his friend’s hands, icy at first, tug at fastenings, slip beneath layers of cloth and leather. Searching fingers, a strong warrior’s hands explore and claim, and Lor’themar is confused by how good it feels._

_“Have you ever…with another man, I mean...” Halduron whispers against his mouth._

_“No.”_

_“Do you_ want _to?” Halduron’s fingers slip lower, warmer now and circle his cock beneath smallclothes and leather while both men are still standing._

_“I...Mmmmm. Yes.” Lor’themar jerks his hips into his friend’s touches despite his attempts to quell his desires and stifle his body’s traitorous reactions._

_“I want to suck your cock. I want you to blow me too. Since I got to the rally point before you, I get to decide who goes first.” Halduron’s fingers fist over Lor’themar’s cock, painfully tight. He doesn’t say anything for a while then finally slides his hands from Lor’themar’s pants, undoes his clothing, pushing the garments to Lor’themar’s ankles._

_Halduron drops to his knees._

_Lor’themar’s world shatters into pleasure. He never knew it could be so good--wet heat, the scrape of Halduron’s unshaved chin against his sensitive skin, how the other elf knows to cup his balls, to suck at the head for only so long, to tighten fingers at the base and squeeze at just the right time._

_He comes faster than he wants with a rough, low cry that echoes in the silent forest around them. He is already imagining how he will return the favor, knees watery, heart galloping, blood roaring in his ears._

_He is wondering how he did not realize it could feel so good._

“Can it be? Have you lost all your stately words, friend?” Halduron asked, bringing Lor'themar back to the moment. Halduron raised one blond brow in a decidedly more-than-friendly expression.

“It seems so,” Lor’themar answered with honesty.

“Good. You don’t need words. You need to _forget_. To let go. As Ranger General of our people, I am recommending that you to put aside matters of state for a time,” Halduron paused to slide his hand from Lor’themar’s face to the curve of his throat, down farther to his chest, resting over his thudding heart.

Lor’themar blinked, willing the sudden fog of lust that was settling over his senses to clear enough that he could offer an apt reply.

“Is this an _official_ request, Brightwing, or a personal favor?” Lor’themar said, surprising himself with the coyness of his tone.

“Mmm,” Halduron considered. “Both, I’d imagine. We have food, wine--you have a back room with a nice, cushiony sofa, do you not?”

“You mean...now? Here?” Lor’themar could feel his eyebrows rise to his hairline.

_Of course he means now. And you want it._

“I came here hoping to fuck you,” Halduron said lightly, though his fingers dug more firmly into Lor’themar’s chest. “Or to at least get you to go find someone or something to do that would get you alive and kicking again. I would of course prefer to be the one to help.”

“How did this happen?” Lor’themar mused.

“Who we are, all we’ve endured together, is it really that surprising?”

“Only a little,” Lor’themar said then closed the distance between them, planting an exploratory kiss on Halduron’s lips, light and feathery, teasing.

It felt as it had the first time. Maybe better...It shocked the same waves of pleasure to his stomach and groin, bottomed out his sense of balance, threw his reality into lust-hazed question.

Halduron exhaled, his breath shallow and quickened.

“I want to do what we did that night,” Halduron whispered, voice thick with desire.

Lor’themar drew back to look into his friend’s face. He realized he wanted it too.

Halduron did not wait for an answer, but moved to grab Lor’themar by one hand, dragging him to the back parlor and slamming the door behind him. He shoved Lor’themar a little roughly onto the divan and stared down at him, hand on the bulge between his own legs.

“I’m going to make you come, Lor. Going to make you fuck my mouth until you cry out like you did that night.”

“You’re a gentleman as ever,” Lor’themar said with a nervous smile. Now that he was here on the sofa, legs spread but still clothed, he felt self-conscious.

“I’m a _man_. Nothing gentle about it. It’s simple--I want to get you off,” he said with a confident jut of his chin. “Just blow jobs if we both take turns tonight...we will work up to you climbing on and riding me hard and fast.”

Lor’themar clenched at the thought of what the other elf had so bluntly suggested. He had always been curious. An image formed in his mind of him filled deep, straddling the other man's narrow waist, his hair down, hips jerking, Halduron beneath him grunting with animal pleasure, slamming his own hips upward…

_It has clearly been too long since I've lost myself in pleasure._

“Who said I’d be the one in the saddle?” Lor’themar narrowed his eye at Halduron.

“My wet dreams, though I’m open to being the bottom. You have one of the best seats in all of Quel’thalas, after all. Now, let's get you out of those clothes,” Halduron said and leaned in for another hungry, urgent kiss.

Lor’themar relished the wine-sweet taste of the other man’s tongue, the busy tug-and-pull of his friend’s fingers at his trousers. With much yanking, wriggling and shifting, Lor’themar found himself naked and splayed on the plush sofa, legs splayed, cock hard and already shining with a slick of pre-cum.

Halduron cast a wolfish gaze up and down Lor'themar’s body then knelt on the floor in front of him, still fully clothed, sleeves rolled up. He dove in to kiss Lor’themar’s neck and chest, tonguing one of Lor’themar’s nipples, biting lightly.

“Fuck,” Lor’themar grunted, surprising himself with the epithet.

Halduron answered with a harder bite followed by the wet, hot slide of his tongue down the valley between Lor'themar’s pecs, over ridges of scars, lower still to his belly.

Lor'themar moaned, low and long. He arched his hips instinctively, searching for any way to get release, to find purchase and friction.

A low sound of pleasure rumbled in Halduron’s chest and he trailed his rough, calloused fingers over Lor’themar’s cock, circling to pump in a deliberate motion, Lor’themar rising to the touches.

“More…” Lor’themar pleaded, voice strained with desire at the breaking point.

Halduron reached up, touched Lor’themar’s lips with his forefinger.

“Suck,” he ordered.

Lor’themar wet the other elf’s finger first with his tongue, then moved his head forward, cheeks drawing tight and rhythmically, mimicking what he needed Halduron to do for him. Halduron offered another finger.

“Wet it good,” he said. Lor’themar obeyed with even more enthusiasm than before.

Satisfied, Halduron kneeled back down and nestled his blond head between Lor’themar’s legs, breath hot and damp against his cock. At the same moment he sucked at the other man’s balls, he teased Lor’themar’s asshole with one of the spit-wet fingers.

“Ungh!” Lor’themar’s hips jerked in surprise and pleasure, the noise in his throat needy and loud.

“You enjoyed that?” Halduron whispered against the base of his cock, hot and cold jolts shooting straight to Lor’themar’s gut.

He was so hard it hurt.

Halduron didn’t wait for an answer, but probed a little deeper at the same time he dragged his tongue along Lor’themar’s cock.

“Halduron… suck me,” Lor’themar pleaded.

Halduron complied. He laved from head to base, sliding under foreskin, drawing all the way back and up again, a moan of pleasure vibrating against Lor’themar’s already achingly sensitive skin.

Lor’themar shook with pleasure, his legs threatening to turn to rubber.

Halduron paused to look up at him, tongue gliding impossibly slowly along the bottom of Lor’themar’s cock.

“Hal--” Lor’themar started but anything else he might have said was lost in the naked pleasure of what Halduron was doing between his legs--fingers exploring, teasing his asshole, then the focused and deep rhythmic sucking that had him so hard he thought he might break.

He felt the scrape of Halduron’s stubble on his thigh, smelled the spice of his own sex, his friend’s sweat--so male, so different than a woman’s scent but every bit as alluring. The sight of Halduron Brightwing--his arrow-straight Ranger General, his oldest friend fucking his cock with kiss-swollen lips, with gentle teeth and ungentle tongue, with hollowed cheeks and tightening throat...it was too much.

He had never seen anything so delicious.

He felt obscene, gorgeous and vital--hot breath, the wet sucking sounds, the nearly-painful pressure of Halduron’s right hand digging into his skin while at least two fingers of the left were inside of him--

“Halduron, fuck me--” Lor’themar grunted, wrenched his hips forward then emptied himself down his best friend’s throat, spurt after spurt--how much seed could any one man have?--groaning, cursing, shaking like he would collapse.

When Halduron finally drew away, Lor’themar realized he couldn't move. His ears rang, his vision was broken into a thousand points of light.

“Lor...Lor, you are delicious,” Halduron murmured. “So damn fuckable.”

“So are you,” Lor’themar said thickly, tongue not wanting to work. He was so tired. What felt like a thousand of years of lost sleep slammed into him at once, the haze of his orgasm gentling everything around him, making him drunk.

He barely even registered his friend hefting him fully onto the sofa. He only realized he was lying on his back, a soft blanket over his damp, still-swollen cock, and his head on the hardened muscle of Halduron’s thighs.

“It was supposed to be your turn--” Lor’themar said, the words trailing into an enormous yawn.

“Oh, there will other times for other turns, if you wish them,” Halduron said, quiet amusement in his voice. “You have a ridiculous amount of hair,” he added, fingers working the ties and fastenings from Lor’themar’s horsetail.

“You’re not going to compare it to starlight?” Lor’themar joked weakly, remembering a particularly aggregious piece of love-poetry he’d been gifted with and shared with Halduron, both of them laughing until their sides ached.

Halduron laughed. Lor’themar felt those clever ranger’s fingers smoothing the now-loose strands away from his face, the motion more soothing than he knew anything could be.

“No, I’m not,” Halduron said quietly. “It’s much more like moonlight anyway. Be quiet, rest. Nothing like a good fuck to make you get some decent sleep for a change,” he added.

“You are a romantic, truly,” Lor’themar said.

“For you--I don’t know. I think I might be persuaded,” Halduron replied, pausing to caress Lor’themar’s battle-scarred cheek. “For you, I might be persuaded to be a great many things.”

 _As would I for you_ , Lor’themar thought but could not say, the words lost in blissful exhaustion, sleep claiming him after the heady pleasure of a dream come true.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I started this like three months ago and struggled with the tone, the dynamic--with everything. I always saw Lor'themar and Halduron as both generally preferring women to men, and I could absolutely see Lor and Liadrin having some history. When the writer's block broke for this was when I realized that sometimes, there can be that one person who defies one's accustomed sense of gender relations or traditional predilections, and Lor'themar and Halduron have the kind of friendship I can see bringing them close enough for a soul-deep mutual admiration to grow into more. I mean...look at instances like how thoroughly and cruelly Halduron tortured the Amani chieftain as revenge for his friend (elves are scary sometimes), or how steadfast he has been despite any disagreements. Anyway, I ramble--I hope this is/was an enjoyable read. I had a ton of fun writing it!


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